The missed shots you never took

Sending applications into the void

Apparently it was Wayne Gretzky who said, “You miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take.” This nugget of wisdom from a great athlete seems to exist to motivate people to try. But of course it belies some other truths like, it’s okay to be selective about your shots or taking a lot of shots doesn’t make you successful or if you keep taking bad shots you’re going to get benched.

Of course rather than pick apart the logic of an inspirational quote, I’m mostly supposed to take the sentiment and then go and do likewise.

For me the most direct application of this Wayne Gretzky quote is in applying to jobs. Applying for jobs is a mostly online affair these days with applications either being built into a company’s website or a set of instructions to email somebody with.

It’s cold. It’s hard to judge what tone something like a cover letter should take. It’s hard to know how I’m being perceived. It’s hard to know when to be assertive and when I’m being unrealistic. Can somebody with as little experience as me really have a shot at a job that requires 1-3 years of professional experience? Should I apply anyway to a job that requires me to live in the NYC area even though I live in a California suburb?

But of course, I do try. I get my clips together, and write a new cover letter and try my best to stand out while being brief in the email. And then I send it. I take the shot.

Then nothing.

I fire off 10 shots in a week… nothing. Two weeks later I get one rejection email “We’re sorry your qualifications were not a match for…” and from the rest I never hear back again. Most of the time I get nothing back. It’s really more like fishing than sports. You cast out the line a 100 times and most of the time your bait returns untouched. Sometimes the bait is gone. Occasionally you catch a fish. Or you don’t catch a fish ‘cause they just aren’t biting.

Maybe the quote should be, “If you don’t put bait on the hook you’ll never know if the fish are biting”.

At least fishing is enjoyable. Missing 100 shots isn’t. If I shot 100 times and even made 10 of them i’d think about quitting the sport. It’s hard not to get down on myself because at that point I kind of suck. If I fish and don’t catch anything, I’d try another spot tomorrow.

It’s really mostly the fishes fault when you fail at fishing.